Sustainability to Libbey means creating a better quality of life for all people now as well as for generations to come, all while using the planet's resources at a rate at which nature is able to replenish them.

Our interpretation of Sustainability means prosperity, fairness, and a healthy environment are all interrelated. Each of these elements can only sustain its existence indefinitely when the others are in balance. We are striving to achieve this balance while maintaining and improving upon high environmental, financial, and social standards. We want to create value for our communities, employees, suppliers, customers, and investors, both now and in the future. Please click through our website to see some of our accomplishments and our desire to continuously.

Prior to officially embarking on our Sustainability journey, we implemented a Lean Enterprise approach at all of our facilities. The basic premise of Lean is to continuously improve our processes to increase efficiency and to reduce waste.

Natural Gas

As a glass manufacturer, we use a lot of natural gas to melt the raw materials needed to produce glass tableware. Finding ways to use natural gas more efficiently is one of our top priorities. We recently began using advanced technology to significantly improve the fuel efficiency of our furnaces. This technology enables our furnaces to burn less gas and prolongs the life of our machinery.

Electricity

We are taking active steps to reduce our electricity use. Some simpler approaches include: lighting our factories and warehouses with low-energy lamps and fixtures; turning off lights when work is completed in an area; and using motion detectors in some areas to shut lights off automatically when people are not present. More advanced activities include: specifying high-efficiency motors and using special control systems to reduce the electrical energy needed to produce compressed air for our glass forming machines.

The “People Side” of Sustainability is just as important as the Environmental and Financial portions. We have a Code of Social Responsibility as well as a Code of Business Ethics and Conduct. These Codes set the standards for how we do business every day.

On top of our internal standards, we also open our facilities around the world several times a year for social compliance audits by companies such Intertek and STR. These companies are recognized and respected globally as leaders in social compliance and safety.

Glass is one of the least potentially toxic waste products that we produce. The raw materials it is composed of are cheap and relatively available, although they do need to be quarried, which has environmental implications.

Glass will not decompose in a landfill site, but it will not leach toxic chemicals. The chief issue with glass production, and the benefit of recycling it, is the energy needed to run and maintain the huge furnaces, and to a lesser degree, the energy of transporting the raw materials and the product.

At Libbey, recycling has been at the heart of our business for over 190 years. We collect and re-use our glass in our factories, so that every piece of glass we make starts with approximately 30% of pre-consumer recycled glass. In fact, Libbey recycled over 360 million pounds of glass in our factories worldwide in 2007. Said another way, we reclaimed and re-used enough waste glass to make a new drinking glass for everyone in the USA, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom – over 500 million glasses!

Why is it Important to Recycle Glass?

Unlike other materials we examine on this site, glass can be melted down and reformed again continually with little or no loss to its quality. There are no waste or by-products from this process, and as the furnaces are in place, it is just the collection and breaking down process that is necessary. Crushed glass is known as cullet.

This is passed through a magnet, which removes any traces of metal, at several stages of the process, from recycling collection point, through crushing, and before the heating point, the glass will be screened for metals or other waste products. A pure glass product must be collected, otherwise impurities will be captured within the new recycled glass – and manufacturers then wouldn't use the product!

Glass is only 2% of the total volume of the average household, but it does account for about 8% of the weight of the total solid waste annually across the world. Recycling glass saves approximately 50% of the energy required to produce new glass. This is because recycled glass, in the form of cullet, needs a slightly lower temperature to melt it.

This lower temperature has the added benefit of prolonging the life of the furnaces – perhaps by up to 20 years. Each ton of recycled glass reduces mining waste by 230 kilograms, thus preserving the environment and saving energy.

Although our natural focus is on glass, we also have company programs to recycle: